Upper Kitchen Cabinets

I finished redoing our upper kitchen cabinets just before having surgery last month. Our kitchen renovation is still slowly, slowly coming together! I was excited about this because it's the first home improvement project I have been able to participate in in a while and I did it almost completely on my own! It really made the kitchen much brighter, there's nothing like a fresh coat of paint to spruce things up. It's really hard to get good pictures in the kitchen because the light is so low in there but this will at least give you an idea.

So the only things left to do in the kitchen now are the backsplash, edging on the flooring and touching up the paint on the bottom cabinets. I'm starting to think we might actually get this done one day!

New Kitchen Floors!

Before

 I have been meaning to write this post for a while but I kept forgetting to take an after shot to show. Well I finally gave up on the kitchen being clean enough to take the picture and went ahead and took the photo today.

Replacing the kitchen floor has been on our to do list for a loooonngg time. The old linoleum floor was stained, dated and showed dirt really easily. We debated floor type for the new kitchen floor for a long time. We needed something water proof, durable, and hopefully pretty. I originally wanted tile but our house is so uneven it would have been a nightmare to install. We ended up going with vinyl plank flooring and I have to say I am very please with the results! Vinyl flooring sure has come a long way in recent years!

After

Eric's parents came down to help us with the install (thanks Don and Jody!) and Eric and his dad had to do a good deal of replacing sub flooring that was water damaged. The vinyl flooring is floating and locks together so once the sub floor was fixed it was relatively easy to put in.

We love love love the new floor, it makes the whole kitchen look more polished and it is holding up really well so far. Next on the to do list for the kitchen is replacing the base boards and quarter round and repainting the upper cabinets/replacing their hardware. Eventually we want to replace the backsplash too but with so much going on in our lives right now who knows when we will get to it.

Getting the House in Gear

After we had kids our work on the house stagnated quite a bit. It's so hard to find time and energy to do the updates we want to do when we have two little ones that need our constant attention. Well this year we are buckling down and committing to getting some stuff done around here. Some of it we will be doing ourselves and some of it we will bite the bullet and just hire someone to do.

The first step was getting a garage door opener for my side of the garage (a big thanks to my in-laws for giving me this for Christmas!). Neither of us used to park in the garage and Eric still doesn't but after I got my shiny new car I didn't want to park it in the driveway under all those trees any more. Having to get in and out of the car to open the door was a pain though, especially with two kids. Having a garage door opener installed is such a little thing but will make a huge difference in my everyday life.

Our next step will probably be to work on finishing up our kitchen renovation which has been limping along for years. We are looking at new flooring (see flooring samples in the photo above) and finishing the paint and updated hardware on the upper cabinets. After that we will think about redoing the back splash.

We also have a million other things on our list to tackle this year but I think we are making good first steps. It's exciting to have house renovations to look forward to and I can't wait to get some of things done that I have been wanting to do for years. So be on the look out for big changes in our house this year, all to be documented here on the blog.

Making My Life in the Kitchen Easier

We've discovered a few odds and ends around the kitchen lately that have really made things easier for me and Eric when we cook! When you have such a small space to work in even little changes can make a big difference. 

The biggest and best new thing in the kitchen is the new under cabinet shelf that Eric put in this past weekend (seen in the photo above, please excuse the messy countertop!). I'm kind of ridiculously excited about it. We desperately needed a spot to stash our cutting boards and shallow dishes and this gets them out of the way while still leaving them really accessible. This shelf is by far the best thing that has happened to our kitchen in recent months. 

We also got some awesome new cutting mats that we love but I forgot to take photos of them. You can kind of see them on the right hand side in the photo of the shelf. They are great because they are so thin and take up so little space. They are also flexible and durable and they come as a set of 4, each a different color so we can have designated cutting mats for different types of meat and veggies. We got ours at the Buford Highway Farmers Market but you can fins similar sets almost anywhere that sells kitchen goods. 

Recipe card on display

 The other things I'm posting about are just little tips that have made our life easier. First of all Eric had the idea to hang a chip clip from our kitchen shelves to use for clipping recipes up while we cook. A lot of our recipes are copied on to recipe cards and stored in a box or binder so this is a nice way to have them at eye level while you work.

My last two tips are for freezing. We are in the market for a chest freezer which I am really excited about! Our current freezer is teeny tiny and it makes it hard to stock on meats and veggies when they go on sale because we have no space to store them. I also like to bake all of our bread but it goes bad so fast without all the preservatives that are in store bought breads that freezing it is the only way to keep a supply on hand. so yeah, I am looking forward to having more freezer space in the near future.

Frozen chicken in teriyaki marinade

That being said, I have some issues with freezing things, especially meat. I know it is a really economical thing to do when we can stock up on sale meat and freeze the extra for later but in my opinion freezing meat can change it's texture and flavor and I hate that! Eric recently came across a tip on one of the frugal boards he reads that has really helped with this problem though. When we freeze chicken breasts we now add a hearty splash marinade. That way when it can marinate while it thaws and we have found that this really helps combat the dryness that usually comes with freezing chicken.

Frozen fresh ginger

 Lastly, I came across this tip for cooking with fresh ginger on one of the blogs I read. I love cooking with fresh ginger, you can't beat the flavor. However it is always really hard for us to use it all up before it goes bad. I recently started peeling the whole ginger root when I buy it and cutting it in to chunks. I stick it in the freezer and then when it's time to use it in a recipe I take out just what I need and and grate it directly in to my dish. This way I don't have to waste any ginger and it's easier to grate when it's frozen.

These are just some things I've been thinking about lately and was hoping they would maybe benefit someone else's kitchen life. Hope you all are having a lovely week!

Essentials for a Small Kitchen

I love just about everything about our house, including our small kitchen. While our kitchen is on the littler side there is still room for two of us to work in there and cooking together is one of our favorite things to do as a family. Having a small kitchen does mean that you have to prioritize and conserve your counter space as much as possible. We have really worked at pairing down our kitchen appliances to just what really use. Here is a list of our kitchen "must haves", our "nice to haves" and what we can live without.

Must Haves

At least one really good knife, preferably two. We have more than one knife but we only have two really good ones and they definitely get the most use. Our favorite knifes are our wonderful Santaku that was a wedding present and a small pairing knife. These have very different uses and there are lots of other knifes that are nice to have but we find you can do most of what you need to with just these two.

Emersion blender. If you have a regular blender you probably don't need this. However it is great for saving space in a small kitchen and eliminates the need for a food processor and a blender. The only exception is if you want to make smoothies since it doesn't handle ice well but for most of my blending needs it does just fine.

Mason jars. We use mason jars for pretty much everything. They are kind of a fad right now but there's a good reason for it, they are awesome! They are heat and cold resistant and keep air out so they are great for storage. eric also loves to drink out of them, especially his Scotch out of the teeny ones.

Wooden spoons and spatulas. These are great because they won't ruin your non stick cook ware. If you take care of them they last pretty much forever and they have a million uses. My little girl also likes to bang them on the floor which helps keep her occupied while I cook :-)

Enameled cast iron dutch oven. This is probably the single most used item in our kitchen. It is nonstick, you can cook on a stovetop with it, you can bake in it and it is pretty much invincible. I can't tell you how amazing this piece of cookware is, get one!

Coffee maker. Ok, I know this isn't essential for everyone. But for a sleep deprived new mommy it it sure is! We used to have a French press which we loved for many years but these days I find that it doesn't produce the amount of coffee I want (I tend to sip on it all morning, getting warm ups as needed). We got a cone filter machine a few years ago and love the quality (and quantity!) of coffee it produces.

A decent set of of basic pans. This includes at least one frying pan and a sauce pan with a lid. You really need these for sautéing things and for boiling water.

Nice to Have

Stand mixer. This is really only for someone who bakes a lot like me. I really resisted getting one of these for a long time, they are so big and take up so much room! However I saw one on sale and couldn't resist it and now I am rapidly falling in love with it. It is amazing for making bread and pie crusts!

Silicone baking mat. Again, if you are a baker this is something that will make your life so much easier. It replaces parchment paper so you don't have to buy that anymore. Literally nothing sticks to it, you don't have to worry about greasing your cookie sheet ever again. It's easy to clean and great for all kinds of baking.  

Rice cooker. I realize this is a huge indulgence on my part, it's really not hard to cook rice in a pan. However we eat a ton of rice in this family and it is so nice to be able to turn this thing on and then forget about it. We have a small one that we keep in a cabinet when we aren't using it.

Good tupperware. It's great to have a nice set of tupperware for leftovers. If you really want to pair down you can do without and just use mason jars though.

Pot with a strainer lid. We love pasta and this pot makes it super easy. it is also a space saver since you don't have to have a colander handy anymore.

Slow cooker. Any mom will tell you slow cookers are the best! It's awesome to be able to throw you ingredients in a pot in the morning and not think about it again until dinner time. As an added bonus you can cook cheaper cuts of meat and they always turn out tender so it can be a big money saver as well. I use our slow cooker a lot on days when Eric works late. I can have a nice hot meal ready for him when he gets home and I don't have to worry about getting my timing just right.

Not Necessary

Microwave. We cut this out of our kitchen years ago, we never miss it at all. Everything can either be warmed up on the stove top or in the oven. It tastes better that way and it really doesn't take that much longer. In my opinion the microwave is the most useless of kitchen appliances.

Toaster. A toaster is only slightly more convenient than an oven. I always just set my oven to broil and stick my bread in for a few minutes, it toasts up nicely and I don't need a special kitchen appliance.

Food processor. If you have an emersion blender you really don't need this. Everything you need cut up you can either cut by hand or use the emersion blender on.

Toaster oven. This is just like a toaster but worse, why does anyone need this?

Bread machine. Personally I am really not a fan of bread machines. To me the bread from them always comes out tasting funny. It's not hard to make bread by hand, it just requires a little patience. And now with all the no knead bread recipes  out there you really don't have an excuse to not make bread by hand. it doesn't get any easier than no knead bread.

Popcorn maker. I'll admit that I do have a popcorn maker and I do use it. It's a little easier than making popcorn in a pan but not much. If I had it to do over again I would skip buying this and just do it the old fashioned way.

Special glasses for every kind of drink under the sun. For example, margarita glasses, red and white wine glasses, champagne flutes, martini glasses, the list goes on and on. Regular glasses will do just fine for most drinks. we regularly use our wine glasses and our pint glasses but that's about it.

I realize this list would probably be different for everyone since we all have different cooking priorities but this is how it goes down in our kitchen and we are pretty serious about our food. In an effort to avoid clutter we have pretty much cut out unessential kitchen gadgets. You should try it sometime, you won't believe how nice it is to have the extra counter space!

New Dishwasher and Spring Cleaning!

Echo has been sleeping better (lots better!) lately and that combined with the beautiful Spring weather has given us a renewed burst of energy. I went from just barely getting through the day to actually wanting to do things around the house and I have been in major Spring cleaning mode. Eric has been getting better sleep too and his big project this weekend was installing our new dishwasher. We desperately needed one and had been planning on getting a new one with Eric's Christmas bonus. It only took us until April to get around to buying one. Here is a picture the kitchen with the new dishwasher installed.

Finally the dishwasher matches the other appliances, one more step complete in our kitchen renovation project! It's hard to see here but Eric also recently added a metal backsplash to the right of the sink.

Our old one was dingy white and probably original to the house which was built in 1976. Not only did it not clean the dished well (you had to pretty much scrub them completely clean before putting them in the dishwasher) but the coating on the wire racks was starting to chip off and it was leaving rust spots on our white dishes. The new dishwasher was a huge pain to install since the people who built our house were crazy and put everything together in odd ways and then basically stuck it in place with chewing gum and twine (that's an exaggeration but not by much). After slaving away all day at it however, Eric finally got the dishwasher in place and ready for the test run.

I hate the floors in our kitchen, that's another thing on the list of things to replace.

 It works so well I want to cry, this is going to make my life sooo much easier! It's also insanely quiet, bliss. It made all our other appliances look really dirty because it was so clean so it inspired me to scrub down the entire kitchen, another check marked off of my Spring cleaning list. The other great thing about the new dishwasher is the giant box it came in!

Naturally we turned it in to a cat house :-)

Exposed Pantry

Finally! A house post again! I bet you thought we'd never have another of those, it's been a while. This whole baby thing has kind of distracted us from working on the house but in our defense she is really cute and it's hard not to spend a lot of time staring at her :-)

We used to have this really awful, deep dark pantry to the left of the fridge. Seriously, it was horrible. You could never find anything in there and we had to keep a flashlight close by to even have a chance of seeing what was inside. So in the spirit of taking out all our cabinets and replacing them with shelves we (ok, mostly Eric) put in an awesome exposed pantry so that we can actually see what we have.

Eric removing the old pantry

ugly, empty space

painted and supports added

Finished!

Finished!

Eric used pine for the shelves and red oak for the vertical beams, the shelves are very solid and fit tons of stuff!

It has freed up so much counter space for us and it's amazing how we can actually see what we have now! It also gives us a nice way to display all the pretty little food canisters we have been collecting. It feels good to be making some progress on the kitchen remodel. Since we spend so much time cooking it's important to have this space be very functional even though it is small. We still have lots of things we want to do in here but this is a huge step in the right direction!

Kitchen Remodel Update

Ever since we found out I was pregnant renovations on the house have pretty much come to a screeching halt. What with shopping for baby stuff and spending all our spare time thinking about, researching and talking about our new addition we haven't had much time to clean the house much less take on any major projects. Combine that with the fact that we are trying to change our lifestyle a bit to save some serious money (I'll blog about that later) and pretty much none of our house goals have been a priority.  

Last week however, something magical happened. I was away for about 6 days visiting my brother in DC with my parents. Eric didn't get to go because he couldn't take the time off from work poor guy :-( When I go away on trips without him Eric tends to get really bored and the result is that he got some major stuff accomplished around the house! The improvement I was most excited about was replacing the kitchen counter to the left of the sink.

This is a picture from before, right after we put in the new sink and replaced the counter to the right of the sink, notice the grand canyon to the left of the sink. It was an abyss in which we kept loosing dishtowels and utensils but we kept putting off replacing it because it was a big job and we were scared ;-)

Here are some pictures of what it looked like when I got home.

Tadaa! the countertop is tiled and edged with wood, sooo pretty!

Eric did a beautiful job on the wood edging, it looks so professional!

The tile is ceramic so it's easy to clean but has that slate look that we love so much. It's great to have this right by the stove so we can set hot pans and things on it. 

No more gap between the sink and the counter! By the way we are totally in love with this sink/faucet combo, we would recommend it to anyone.

 We still have to figure out what to do with the backsplash which is making everything look a little unfinished right now. Still, having that section of counter finished off is a huge improvement! We have one more tiny section of counter to the left of the stove that we need to replace and then we will be done with counters, yay! Still lots I want to do in the kitchen but it's nice to make some progress. I'm super grateful to Eric for getting so much done while I was away :-)

Kitchen Cabinets=Finished!

You may may remember that I started painting our kitchen cabinets back in January as part of our kitchen remodel. Well shortly after I started this project I found out I was pregnant and decided that working with oil based paints wasn't the healthiest choice for me and the baby. The result was that I had crazy looking half painted cabinets and it was kind of driving me nuts. Well lucky for me I have awesome parents who volunteered to come finish painting my cabinets for me, yay! They painted the cabinets yesterday and today we put them all back together again. I think they look amazing, it's like I got all new cabinets! Here are some pictures :-)

Cabinet doors being painted on the deck

In progress, we will be ripping out all of the upper cabinets eventually so we didn't bother painting them.

Finished!

Another angle, some day we will get a black dishwasher

Sorry for the blurry picture, you can get an idea of what the new hardware looks like.

Thanks for the help Mom and Dad! It feels great to make some progress on the kitchen!

Kitchen Sink!

Eric's parents came down this weekend and gave us the kick in the pants we needed to finally install our new kitchen sink. We have been hanging on to the thing forever but we were hesitant to start the project because tackling plumbing issues seems scary and overwhelming. Luckily, my father in law Don was happy to help and he and Eric spent the better part of the weekend installing the new sink, faucet and a section of butcher block counter. We still have a lot to do and the kitchen looks like a hot mess right now because of all the unfinished details but oh my gosh, what we do have in place looks gorgeous! I am totally in love with the new fixtures and the countertop, just this little bit is really helping me envision what the kitchen will look like when the whole remodel is done. Here are some pictures before, during and after :-)

Before, Eric had already ripped out the countertop in preparation for the new butcher block

Old Sink

Old faucet

Installing the new sink and butcher block

In progress, the sink has no faucet yet!

After, taa daa! Still kind of in progress since there is now a gap to the left of the sink and we are missing some tiles from the backsplash

The new sink is deeeep!

New faucet, so spiffy! It's fun because it has a normal mode and a sprayer mode and it's all flexible and easy to move around.

Another after shot, now I have to get on painting the rest of the cabinets!

 For the counter to the left of the sink we are thinking of using tile so that we have a safe place to set hot pans and an area that won't matter if it gets too wet so we can dry dishes and things over there. We're still figuring this one out but it is sure to be exciting! Right now I am just loving the new sink, washing dishes has never been so fun ;-)

Happy Anniversary To Us!

It is just over a year since we closed on the house, my how time flys! I still can't believe that all that paperwork and all the headaches that go along with buying a home are so far behind us. It's a great feeling to be settled in to our own home and we have been working diligently to pay off our mortgage ahead of schedule. It will be another amazing milestone to pay off the house but that is still a long way off.

Needless to say a lot of my short term plans for home improvements have been put on hold because of the impending new arrival to our family. We are putting away as much money as possible to save up for baby so that has caused us to slow some of our bigger projects. On top of that I am totally wiped out and nauseous all the time which basically means I have no energy (or desire) to do home improvement projects. Apparently growing a baby is hard work because it has left me totally exhausted. Oh well, it's supposed to get better in the second trimester :-)

Eric was able to find time to put in a new light over the sink in the kitchen so I wanted to post a picture of that to share with everyone.

We got this nice little pendant light at World Market, it is a big improvement over the ugly florescent fixture that used hang above the sink.

Other changes around the house all have to do with the coming of Spring. We've had such a warm Winter and I know things are blooming early everywhere. Our yard is no exception although we do seem to be a little behind Atlanta proper since we are little higher altitude and it tends to be slightly colder here in Marietta. Here are some of the things that are starting to sprout and bloom around the yard.

Daffodils coming up but not quite in bloom yet. I planted about 25 of them last Fall, it's exciting to watch them come up.

Azaleas starting to bloom but not up to their full glory yet.

Close up of Azalea blossoms, my white Azaleas aren't blooming yet for some reason. 

More Shelving is Up!

Just a quick little post to update you on some kitchen progress. We kind of got slowed down a lot because Eric threw out his back last weekend and I have been really busy with work among other things. This weekend (while I was working) Eric put up the rest of our little narrow cup shelves on the side wall. We are loving having everything out and accessible. It also gives us a chance to show off a lot of our more interesting and special mugs and cups.

Ignore the dirty dish on the couter ;-P

I also wanted to share the cute little mug I made at a girls night out we had doing paint your own pottery (you can see it displayed proudly on our new shelves). I was pretty happy with it considering I haven't done paint your own pottery since I was six :-)

Little bits of kitchen progress

We haven't had time to do too much lately but here is the progress we made over the last week. Maybe we'll get some more done this weekend :-)

Eric is starting to add some narrow shelves for glasses on the side wall

Another view of our narrow glass shelf

I painted a bunch of the drawers and replaced the hardware, next step is the cabinet doors and then the framework.

I think the black will look so nice when it's done :-)

That's it for now, hopefully there will be more coming soon, we'll see how crazy our weekend gets :-)

P.S. Sorry for the terrible pictures, it was way too dark when I was trying to take them.